Breaking into a creative industry, like games, can be tough under normal circumstances, but what do you do if your background - educational, financial, or otherwise - is making things even more difficult? A new initiative called Commercial Break aims to address that very question by helping under-privileged youths get into advertising, and international publishing heavyweight Ubisoft is the initiative's first client. Speaking about the new partnership, Head of Brand Marketing Mark Slaughter stated that Ubisoft is "committed to making a contribution to helping young, creative individuals get onto a career path that makes use of their talent."

The aim of the partnership is to create an ad campaign for one of Ubisoft's upcoming games. To this end, the company selected eight would-be marketers, aged 18 to 19, out of 30 applicants in the London area. The teens are a good fit for Ubisoft, according to Slaughter, who said that "the participants will bring a fresh perspective, especially as many of them form part of our target audience and will be on the same wavelength as the consumers we are trying to reach." James Hillhouse, co-founder of Commercial Break, agreed that the partnership worked well because "videogames are at the heart of creative entertainment for young people." As for the participants, "they can't wait to get started."

Ubisoft did not specify which game the ad campaign would be for, but it will be a launch campaign during the fall. That covers the launch of Assassin's Creed III, but that's certainly not the only title Ubisoft is publishing this fall - others include Just Dance 4 and Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth. Either way, Commercial Break will help the participants find paid internships based on their new-found experience after the project is complete.

To be a bit more serious I'm interested in what this may produce but I'm not really sure how this might go especially since we have no clue what game it's for. A smaller game obviously has less marketing budget limiting what they can do but I highly doubt they would them in charge of anything major.

I was under the impression that all of the previous Dead Space games were marketed by teenagers...

But seriously, it's an interesting idea, depending on the specifics. For one, does this go hand-in-hand with providing actual training and learning, or are they just getting cheap labor under the guise of "exposure?" Also, are the kids getting paid for this at all?

I was under the impression that all of the previous Dead Space games were marketed by teenagers...

But seriously, it's an interesting idea, depending on the specifics. For one, does this go hand-in-hand with providing actual training and learning, or are they just getting cheap labor under the guise of "exposure?" Also, are the kids getting paid for this at all?

There weren't a whole lot of specifics, but my impression is that Ubisoft will be training them, but not paying them. Not ideal, but pretty standard internship terms for an industry in high demand.

The ads may not be great, but the idea of croudsourcing it to give underprivileged teens some real life experience is pretty interesting. And really, putting choices into the hands of consumers can yeild some suprisingly awesome results.

Suddenly I picture a exec at Ubi going, "Wait a second...those guys over at EA are just...terrible. Like they are trying to be as bad as possible. Hell, we do one clever, nice, innovative thing and we will look like absolute angels compared to them. Whats the most straight forward way to do this. Umm...help underprivileged kids. Whats an easy way to do that? Umm...job experience? Yeah, no one will complain about that. Let em work in...marketing! Yeah. This will do nicely."

Surprisingly good or hilariously bad, this should actually go pretty well.

I was under the impression that all of the previous Dead Space games were marketed by teenagers...

But seriously, it's an interesting idea, depending on the specifics. For one, does this go hand-in-hand with providing actual training and learning, or are they just getting cheap labor under the guise of "exposure?" Also, are the kids getting paid for this at all?

Also Splinter Cell Conviction. Remember that stunt they pulled in New Zealand where they pretended to rob a bar and didn't bother to inform the police, or bar owner, or anyone? Good times.